Mister Bump UK

The Skype’s the Limit

Just before the lockdown we were advised (here) to avoid unnecessary contact, which people duly ignored. Except me. I said to Age UK that I was happy to do the calls [the voluntary work I do each week is calls to about 10 clients, any subjects, just to help combat lonliness], but I wanted to do them from home rather than from their office. A phone is a phone is a phone, after all.

When the lockdown came, we embarked on reassurance calls, too, specifically as a result of the crisis. Do you have groceries? Do you have meds? in particular. So, my calls jumped to 20 per week. In an email to someone, I jokily said that rather than just picking up the phone, I should put the computer to work and make use of my always-on internet connection.

Afterwards I thought about it more seriously. Why not? So I started looking for a program to do it.

The first link I hit told me I could use Gmail. Great, I don’t really use Gmail, but I have an account, so I logged on. Sure enough, I could place a call but when I tried calling my wife (on her mobile, in the next room) she couldn’t hear me.

So I assumed that the microphone on the PC was not really clear enough, and ordered a headset off eBay. That’s a good idea anyway, because it allows me to make calls handsfree, useful when only one arm works since it allows me to type, if I need to write something down.

That headset finally arrived Saturday. Just an unbranded one – I figured that a brand like Logitech will just take an unbranded Chinese item and stamp its name, so didn’t see the point in paying more (a Logitech headset was 50% more). So I plugged this thing in and … same result! No can hear me.

I fiddled with the settings for a while. But Audacity could hear me just fine. Microsoft’s voice control software could hear me just fine. But my wife couldn’t when I tried to call her through gmail.

So I decided to explore other programs. Microsoft bought Skype a few years back and there it was, already installed on the PC. So I set it up. Hey presto, I was making calls within minutes! I had to take out a cheap subscription, just to be able to call old-fashioned landlines, but it should work out cheaper than just using my house phone.

I’m still not too familiar with the Microsoft flavour of Skype. Last time I remember it was years ago, when communication through the computer was a new thing (and poor quality). I thought I got a phone number, so internet geeks across the world could call and say Hi, but it looks like I need to pay extra for that. Hmmmm…. Microsoft Marketing at work, no doubt. No matter, I only really need the calls to go one way, anyway.

As it happens, I can claim any of my call expenses back from the charity, so I didn’t really need to do any of this, but I’m sure they have better things to spend their money on than my phone bill, so it makes sense if I can minimise everything. And I can now listen to posts without disturbing anyone else!

Published by Mister Bump UK

Separated with a grown/flown daughter. In life, I designed IT systems, taking a career break as a bicycle mechanic, until interrupted by a stroke in 2016, aged 48. On my way back into full-time work, I developed health-related apps and performed voluntary work. I enjoy composing limericks and flash fiction in my spare time.

23 comments

  2. Sounds good! I use Whatsapp (from Facebook I know🙄) to make calls, I’m not big on video chatting 🙂 I think the headphones aren’t a luxury, it seems like they are very helpful.

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    • Tried and tested it last night ready for calls today. The main thing is that the quality is quite good. The weirdest thing is that I have these headphones on, so cannot hear my own voice as I norma;;y do. They should make the unit so that the headphones play the mic at a small volume. But I can wear one headphone slightly off-ear, should fix that.
      It cost a whopping £2.50 to make calls to any UK landline for the next month – no wonder we get so many spam calls on the house phone!

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